BOSTON — A troop of public health officials at a Logan Airport press conference reemphasized Tuesday that there are no current cases of Ebola in Massachusetts and that the virus poses a very tiny risk to residents.
Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Martin Walsh reassured the public that even though recent Ebola scares in Greater Boston were false alarms, they showed that public health officials have the tools in place to handle any possible outbreak, however rare it might be.
“I want to assure everyone that each of these situations is being take very seriously but there is not a cause for alarm,” Patrick said Tuesday morning.
While the officials gathered mentioned that the state and city are in a great position to address any kind of outbreak, they strongly emphasized that the Ebola virus is not an easily transmittable virus.
Officials from the Boston and Massachusetts public health offices said that the virus is only transferable when someone comes in contact with the bodily fluids of another person already suffering from Ebola.
“You cannot got Ebola through the air or water,” Interim BPHC Executive Director Dr. Huy Nguyen said.
Recent scares at a Braintree medical facility and onboardan Emirates flight at Logan Airport involved individuals displaying flu-like symptoms that turned out to not to be the Ebola virus. The scares resulted in dramatic photos of emergency personnel in fully contained yellow Tyvek suits removing individuals from cars and airplanes.
Walsh said that pubic health officials and the media need to educate the public so they understand what Ebola is and how could be infected. Walsh said there is a public “fear factor” that is overblown.
Walsh answered a reporter’s question about it being safe to ride the MBTA by saying that you will not catch the virus by using public transportation.
“Simply going out of your house, simply going on the train, you are not going to catch Ebola. It is very clear. We are monitoring the situation. We have zero cases in Massachusetts, which means we have zero cases in Boston,” said Walsh.
Walsh, along with other officials, noted that the city is more than capable of handling any kind of outbreak with its abundance of hospitals and world class medical research facilities.
Patrick interrupted Massachusetts Department of Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett near the end of the press conference to show how difficult it is to transmit the virus. Patrick stood approximately three feet from Bartlett and repeatedly said that it would be next to impossible to catch the virus.
“This is hard to catch,” said Patrick.
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